Nollywood Series 1: What is Nollywood?

Just like Hollywood and Bollywood, we have a prominent African Movie Industry of Nigerians called “Nollywood”. it’s obvious a lot of successful movies were made in Nigeria even before the famous Industrial name Nollywood came into existence. Nollywood is more than the Home Video production outfit that has been tagged to it. This promising industry has added a lot of money to the countries GDP. It is one of the countries highest employer of labour.

Nollywood involves all the totality of movie productions made either in Nigeria or by a Nigerian producer outside the country. Most Nollywood movies feature Nollywood actors or foreign actors. Just like every other film-making industry the Nollywood has employed a great number of people who not only make movies as a career but make a living out of the Home Video movie industry.

The Nollywood as a labour industry employs all manner of artisans, craftsmen, professionals, traders, and distributors. Nollywood has its own distribution networks. There is a quiet number of guilds or labour unions in the Nollywood. These include the guilds of the producers, the directors, the actors the cinematographers, the film editors, the script-writers, the production assistance, the marketing/distribution guilds.

The Most recognized guild of them all is the Actors Guild of Nigerian, AGN. The mother Guild as fondly called, which takes recognizance of all the other guild bodies. The Directors Guild of Nigeria is the guild of all the registered members of the directing guild. The other guilds function as such and have presidents, executives who sit and make the politics of movie making in Nigeria. Sometimes, the guilds come together to form coalitions or create Taskforce’s to help checkmate their governing bodies or proceedings.

Nollywood has its own quagmire. Currently, the movie industry has been facing consistent piracy, poor distribution network, access to facilities and cinema exposure. The movie industry has faced lots of challenges all resulting from Government not intervening or curbing their adverse difficulties. It has always been a self-sustaining industry. Access to loans or grants is limited. The sustainability of the industry is been faced by poor administrations. There has been a lot of mediocre in the movie industry who out of either greed or get-rich attitude has joined the movie industry. These have resulted in poor stories, poor production values, poor ethics and poor expressions in this very art of movie making.

Movie making is a wonderful art. Great movies that would forever live to the best of time which include. Living in Bondage, Karashika, Igodo to mention but a few. You can watch them below:

A CLASSIC NOLLYWOOD MOVIE: IGODO BY OJ PRODUCTIONS

A CLASSIC NOLLYWOOD MOVIE: KARASHIKA BY TONY JICKSON PRODUCTIONS

A CLASSIC NOLLYWOOD MOVIE: LIVING IN BONDAGE

In my own opinion movie making is not all about the camera and action. It involves having the utmost desire to tell a story and in that passing out ethical and cultural values. A great story is one that will leave us with questions and feelings, it would either answer our questions to a situation or tend to proffer solution to it. One can come to understand that a well-thought story or production can not only be dependent on the equipment or camera used, it all starts with a good Idea.